1. Field
The present disclosure relates to a technology for efficiently transmitting cross-sectional images of a three-dimensional (3D) object.
2. Discussion of Related Art
In general, a 3D printer performs an operation of outputting a 3D object using two-dimensional (2D) cross-sectional images generated by slicing the 3D object into layers with thickness of the printer's lamination layer. In the case of conventional 3D printing technology, a 3D object is output by generating 2D cross-sectional images in a scalable vector graphics (SVG) format and converting the 2D cross-sectional images into machine language codes such as G-code to controlling the 3D printer. In the case of the SVG format, only the contour lines of the 3D object are expressed, and 3D output is mainly accomplished by having the tool output the layer according to the contour lines using a single color and a single material for layering the output. However, printing technologies such as multi-jet modeling (MJM), color jet, or multi-jet fusion (MUF) that support multi-color and multi-material outputs have recently been applied to 3D printers. These 3D printers generate 2D cross-sectional images in bitmap format which is capable of representing additional information such as color and material as well as contour lines within the image, and such a printer performs an output operation based on the generated 2D cross-sectional images.
However, in the case of the bitmap image, the image resolution is very high, and thus the size of the image data is very large. In addition, the number of cross-sectional images to be stored is also very large because it is inversely proportional to layer thickness of the printer. A large amount of resource for computing, memory, and storage for storing and processing is actually required even for a small size object.
To solve this problem, a scheme of only transmitting a necessary number of cross-sectional images suitable for an output situation of the printer without transmitting all of the generated 2D cross-sectional images to a 3D printer at the same time has recently been used. Even in this streaming-based output operation, a large storage space is still required for storing images, and the size of a cross-sectional image to be streamed is significant, so that problems of transmission delay or error may occur depending on network environment, and thus the risk of an output operation delay and failure is large.